Fantasy Fence Depot

My family hired Fantasy Fence Depot LLC to build a fence for our yard. We wrote a check of $5,000 to Fantasy Fence Depot for half down in order to cover the cost of materials. After the check was cashed I read several horrific reviews of this company online due to poor construction, failure to show up on the start date and continuously lying to customers. After seeing these reviews I was very nervous about continuing my fence project with this company. I showed the owner of the company the reviews I saw and explained that I was no longer comfortable working together and asked for a refund unless he could prove to me that he actually purchased the materials with my down payment. I was shown a receipt from a local lumberyard which eased my mind slightly so I decided to continue working with him. Shortly after I was invited to a group chat with 30 or more people that have had problems with Fantasy Fence Depot that explained how the owner has manipulated people out of thousands of dollars and has had many complaints of poor quality. In this chat I was shown the exact same receipt that was sent to several other people. I messaged the owner and demanded an explanation and a refund of my $5,000 down payment because I knew that the materials were never even purchased. He never responded to my request for a refund and has yet to contact me.

The owner of Fantasy Fence Depot LLC, Bryan Gottschalk, has stolen our deposit of 3500.00 for fencing and will not return our calls or messages. Bryan took our deposit on 4/27/20 and gave us a two week wait time. After serveral weeks of trying to get him to come install the fence we asked for our money back and to go our seperate ways. We were promised that if they did not show up by 6/15 he would refund us the money. 6/15 a worker showed up at 3 PM and started SPRAY PAINTING posts black for our fencing. (we ordered black chainlink) then started to pound the posts into the ground with out agreed upon concrete base. After telling my husband they were spray painted he came home and told the worker to stop putting poles in. We messaged Bryan asking for our money back and Bryan blamed his employee and called him a "XXXXing It" and they would be out the next day to do it right. 6/16 A team showed up and started to drill holes for posts. After really looking at the posts, they looked used as they were dented and scratched. The holes they dug were not consistant and spanned over 11ft in some areas. (maximum stretch is 10ft per fencing guidelines). We also found he damaged our newly sided garage and is denying it. Fantasy Fence did not show up the next morning and my husband called and fired him. Bryan was on our property within 30 minutes removing posts that were supposed to be concreted in (they pulled right out). After again reaching out to Bryan for our money back, he will not answer or message us back.

I began talking to *** beginning of April when he came out to Edgerton to give me and my neighbor a quote for a 6ft privacy fence for my back yard. April 14th 2020 he stopped by with an invoice and I paid him a deposit of $1,800 dollars. It’s noted on the invoice he was to start on May 3rd 2020. That time came and went and so I checked in with him about a week after that. He said due to the recent rain he was behind a bit and would let me know when he’d be at our house. He had stopped by in person with this message. Then another couple weeks had passed and still no word. My neighbor, who was on his “List” just before me, as we got our quotes the same day, messaged me and asked what was up with our fence, asking when it was to be completed. I said hopefully any day now. She told me hers had been done for a couple weeks already, and they had been waiting for him to come do my fence, so Bryan could stop by and fix a couple things on their fence that had been done incorrectly. At this point it was end of may almost June. I messaged again and once again I got weather excuses. He kept giving me “ill be there beginning/middle/end of next week answers”. I finally told him I need an actual date, and that I was getting frustrated from the lack of communication. So he gave me a date of Wed, June 17th to get there and get started. But no time of arrival. When I woke on Wed the 17th, no sign of him or any workers. I had broken my phone since the last I had communicated with him so I had been emailing, and trying to send messages from my iPad with no results. So when they didn’t show up on the day he finally gave me , I drove to my husbands work to use his phone. I was unable to use mine due to a really damaged phone. I asked him why they weren’t there yet, and this time it was a broken piece of equipment that he was waiting on. I told him he’d need to get there by the end of the day. Late that afternoon after he’s still not at my house, I texted him with my husbands phone and he said he still hadn’t heard from the parts guy. So I said ‘I assume your not coming here today” . He then told me if he didn’t have my fence done by the next Friday, which would be this Friday the 26th, he would give me a full refund. After this discussion I had found a group of people in the same situation. So then I just messaged him and said I wasn’t willing to wait that long and I would just like my cash back. He then tried to make a deal with me that he would drop off all the materials for the fence and he would just keep the deposit. I requested a list of these materials he supposedly had, which was never produced. I again told him I need to hear back, so he could get me my money back and never responded. When I got no response still, I told him if he didn’t message back then I was going to the authorities, and filing a small claims case. I still haven’t heard from hm since, and that was Friday the 19th.
At one point he told me they don’t check the email that is provided at the bottom of the receipt and he can’t help the weather or if a part breaks. So many excuses I’ve lost count.
I am now out $1800 , half my summer, and I have no fence or any materials from him to show.
I have a copy of the invoice and screen shots of as many texts as I could get with my phone being broken.

I hired this business to install a wooden privacy fence with 2 gates. I paid them in full. Only one gate was installed which has not been completely operable since it was installed. I have messages from them that the intent was to return and install the other other gate. The fence installation was the first weekend of August 2019. I have contacted them several times for several loose boards, posts are all at different heights and I still do not have my second gate. I was told they would complete the work and have that in messages as well. I have two checks that were cashed for payment in full and the job has never been completed.